Educating Humanity. Rethinking ethical-political education (Bildung)

The overall aim of these collaborative and explorative workshops is to identify, conceptualize and meet the most pressing issues regarding ethical-political education (Bildung) in and for today’s societies in the Nordic countries.

Photo: Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo

In today’s epoch of the global village, it is pertinent to systematically explore philosophies, theories, models, metaphors and not least contemporary experiences of ethical-political education across sites and fields. We therefore engage Nordic youths, policy-makers and junior scholars in explorative dialogues in order to identify the potential prospects and pitfalls of the many faces of ethical-political education in contemporary Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm.

About the project

This workshop series bring together researchers from different academic fields, policy-makers, non-academic partners and youths from Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm. The attendants share research results, challenge ontological and epistemic assumptions beyond contemporary models of ethical-political education.

We address three areas of research work that conjointly feed into the project: (1) Philosophical practices that involve Nordic youths; (2) Cross-cultural studies that compare and contrast the various missions, approaches and traditions of ethical-political education within and beyond Europe; and (3) Cross-disciplinary and meta-theoretical analysis that disclose ontological and epistemic assumptions beyond Nordic philosophies, theories, models and metaphors of ethical-political education.

The three workshops indicate three steps in the rethinking of Nordic ethical-political education and also in developing a proposal for a collaborative study

Bildung in contemporary societies. Oslo 13th–15th February 2017. Here, we explore theories, models and metaphors of ethical-political education across sites and fields.

Imaginary practices. Copenhagen 6th–8th November 2017. We here perform a systematic re-thinking of current ways of practicing and researching ethical-political education.

Beyond the Nordic model. Helsinki 10th-12th September 2018. We have identified outlooks, theories and research tools that help to outline a research proposal.